Cultural Anamnesis. Retellings. Meet the fey, the wise, the mercurial, the historical and imagined. Tales of spirit and worldview. Truths through myth and mystery, reality and allusion. Humana: how and why do its transmitted tales change. A Gristmill site. By Dint. Where do the old signs lead. Follow the dark rope. Hush. It is still there.

I. Overview: A summary of Pocahontas' life and times. A story from the records.
II. The Disney Travesty: Fiction passing as "fact." Marketing and profit interests supersede.
III. Pocahontas History Timeline: filling in gaps, The Virginia Company, proprietary colonies, NPS and other research,
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I. Overview: The Real Pocahontas, or close to a historical story.

Relevance: First, a historical record, then morphed into misleading entertainment, and now used as a pejorative in propaganda, in a war of words,

A. A substantial and culturally advanced population. Significance of the Native Americans at Jamestown.

Whites from England appeared by ship in about 1607, with a charter from 1606 to gain a foothold in this new world of North America for economic development for the Virginia Company, and permissions granted by the English king. Their happy landing place was Jamestowne.

When did the tobacco farming begin, after what period of experimentation? What other ventures preceded?

The
Virginia Company was all about investment and return, and first with just those men and boys, hardly equipped for permanence. Their job was to figure out what
crops or endeavors would make money for the shareholders back in
England, and do it.

There was no religious motivation to the excursion
of the whites here, no flight for freedom of belief, away from
oppression, just lucre.

C. Pocahontas' earlier life. Weigh the information.

Pocahontas had been married to one Kocoum, http://smithtrail.net/files/Pocahontas.pdf/nps [here, the National Park Service research sites], but the customs were different among the Powhatans, and perhaps wiser than ours. Marriages among Powhatans apparently included a one-year option, with right to renew; but if not renewed, it was extinguished, see at.https://www.nps.gov/jame/learn/historyculture/copy-of-the-powhatan-indian-world.htm.
Sounds eminently civilized fostering autonomy of both parties, and they were called heathen? Where there was a child, the mother would care for the child for several years, before the child entered a form of group care, and the mother was not primarily responsible thereafter. Is that so? This is my impression from the nps sites. A mother with
a child in group responsibility care would be free to be part of
whatever other history she chose. Childbirth did not trigger a lifetime
of care.

Childrearing: Standards. Attitudes. Behaviors. Code of respect, behavior in front of others fostered dignity. High value on self control. No separate "law enforcement" needed because of primacy of self control, devaluing open hostility; but chief could intervene. Nonetheless, overall rule fostered dignity as a public attitude: no interference, no preaching, no insulting. This also shaped how Powhatans related to non-relatives or persons not trusted, not liked. Hold back if you can.

Misunderstandings with the English were not just linguistic. English observed polite listening and concluded the listener agreed with the speaker. Not so. Polite listening was normal behavior in front of others. Tolerance until further tolerance was virtually impossible.

Powhatan Indians: Positive relationship evidence. Extended aid at first to English, food, how to survive. This stopped when the English had overstayed, overreached, exploited, demanded food on and on.

D. Pocahontas in the middle.

Pocahontas was part of the series of both benign and warlike interactions between the Native Americans and
the white fortune-seekers in the area -- that Virginia Company. She passed from time to time, from the white area to the Native American, with various ups and downs and kidnappings, negotiations, skirmishes, making nice and then more hostage-takings both sides, as the whites nearly starved that first year, except for help from Powhatan, and then distrust developed and so on.

Ultimately she married one John Rolfe, one of The Virginia Company arrivees who came on a later ship in 1610. The Rolfes had a son, Thomas.

When the Virginia Company neared bankruptcy, Pocahontas returned to London with John Rolfe and little Thomas Rolfe to promote the success of the venture, reassure investors (it is understood that converted to Christianity before her marriage to Rolfe?), was treated well as the equivalent of royalty, a princess, but then she died. We have no information on how she understood marriage in the white way, but there is not information either on any compulsion in her leaving. Is that so? In other Native American groups, introduction to western disease resulted in many deaths, even decimation of whole tribes, but we know no specifics as to the immunity or lack of immunty of Pocahontas as part of her death. She got sick and died in 1617, perhaps of smallpox. She is buried at Gravesend, England, at St George's Church. Where there? Unknown. She was so unimportant, is that it? just another curiosity, that her grave either was never re-marked once old markings were lost (the old church burned, apparently), and no one knows where on the grounds she lies now.

The descendants of the son of the Rolfes succeeded in forging an exception to the miscegenation laws of Virginia in later centuries: thanks to their self-interest, one could be a certain portion (is it 1/32?) descended from the non-white Pocahontas and still count as white.

Issue: Responsibility for what is transmitted to children in order to make money, to persuade those without access to vetting tools that a fiction is "history." Is there an obligation to be fair to them, and nd others affected by beliefs they are lured to adopt, disclosures. Should there not be a requirement, like a disclaimer, that the name of historic person is used in the medium presented, but any likeness thereafter to the real life of the person may not be present at all. The Fakery Medallion.

Compare history with Disney. A summary of the Disney fantasy follows, as impressions, fair use of partial phrases, run-on sentences. See references here to the little children's book, The Pocahontas Story, at http://princess.disney.com/pocahontas-story. Note the complete absence of John Rolfe, the white man who married Pocahontas, and only John Smith is presented as an actor on this little made-up stage. Our story begins: all paragraphing artificial --

1. Pocahontas is adventurous, running free in the land she "called"
home, in awe of "untouched beauty" of the land, leaps from tall
waterfalls, consults in a glade with mystical tree known as Grandmother
Willow, Pocahontas was raised to believe spirits all around her would
guide her

2. Pocahontas saw sails and thought they were clouds (how do we know that??) , saw men
"settlers" on board coming ashore, the men believed they could claim the
land for themselves, she saw John Smith among them and he was kind and
gentle so she followed him and he saw her, she stepped up even though he
was a stranger, a magical breeze blew and they could understand each
other, although different they became friends and explored together

3. Pocahontas explained to John Smith about Grandmother Willow and that all
things are one (did she now?), introduced John Smith to Grandmother Willow, the great
spirit (is this still Grandmother Willow?) affirmed he was a good man
and she could trust him,

4. Now enter tensions between her tribe and John Smith group
"settlers", there was no mutual trust, she tried to get her father the
chief to talk to John Smith but the chief would not listen, then John
Smith met Pocahontas in the glade and wanted to protect her and her
people, they kissed and had fallen in love, they embraced, her tribesmen
found them and captured John Smith, and she visited him secretly, John
Smith vows no matter what happens I am with you always, tribe prepares
for war,

5. Pocahontas tells her father she loves John Smith and to hurt him
would mean more war, so her father frees John Smith, John was injured
and had to go home, Pocahontas wanted to go, too, but knew her tribe
needed her, she kisses him goodbye and says she will be with him always
THE END.

Additional information, resources, for historical context, further research. This kind of project has to end as incomplete because the information seems endless. The timeline organization is intended here as a springboard for others' interests, perhaps.

Purpose: Pocahontas has not only been used to make money for Disney, but also as a weapon in politics, see Pocahontas misused in petty wars of words, those puffing
displays between rivals to win over the undecided, to persuade, nuggetize an opponent in a pejorative way. Explore instead facts of the era and life Pocahontas,
the name of that historical figure now being bandied as a joke -- someone who embraces family stories of a Cherokee forbear, now called by a Powhatan name? Propaganda may be countered, perhaps, with luck and perseverance and at least some openness, by information.

1580
- Sir Walter Raleigh attempts to found a colony in Virginia; that settlement
disappears, however, and became known as The Lost Colony, see NPS The Virginia Company of London.
Was this under the same kind of economic charter as the later Jamestown?

1587 - Baby Virginia Dare is born at another English colony at Roanoke, then Virginia; now North Carolina, Outer Banks islands. Question: Women were arrivals at the Outer Banks. Was their charter, then, to settle permanently, or was this still another economic venture by the Virginia Company?

1591
- Roanoke Colony had disappeared, however, by the time Sir Walter Raleigh got
back to it. Note the fertile ground for conjecture: a centuries-later 1937 hoax news suggested that Virginia Dare and her
father died in 1591, in an Indian attack and Mother Elizabeth Dare married an
Indian, etc, see http://www.outerbanks.com/virginia-dare.html.

Leadership
problems: President and appointed council of 7, many disagreements
with laborers, and issues of evolving difficulties with area tribe,
Powhatans, need for food, bad water, class strife within the group, see NPS Virginia Company.

May: Circumstances upon landing:
Cultural backgrounds of the men on board, and the indigenous: To be researched further.
Response initially to each other?
Later attack? so say settlers
Instigation? What was demanded by each side of the other?

December -- early: John Smith captured
Later -- John Smith brought to Powhatan

Did Pocahontas act to save John Smith in any way? Need details. Contemporary reports?
Descriptions: heroism; what records are there? With only men on board the ships, how would Pocahontas be treated?

1609 - 1610 -- Starvation period at Jamestown NPS Virginia Co.
What fraction of settlers survived? Small. How small? Financial trauma
for company, how to pay for debts, incurred more when sent more
settlers.

John Rolfe arrived in 1610. Get site.

Was John Smith hurt in an explosion, leave for England?
Was it for treatment, or other reasons?

1610 -- Sir Thomas Gates, Deputy Governor for Virginia, arrives. NPS Virginia Co.
By this time, court cases in England against company, big advertising
campaigns painted rosy picture, lures for investment, little basis in
practicality, appeals to English nationalism, heathens would be
converted, the European unemployed would find employment in the New
World, and just watch the standard of living for everybody rise and
rise. NPS Virginia Co.

Had English and their weaponry been captured by the Native Americans?
Did the English capture Pocahontas to hold her for ransom, to get back the Englishmen and weapons? See Softschools.
Who demanded what? See Softschools.

Pocahontas stays with the English. Voluntarily? Was it because Powhatan refused the demands? See Softschools.

1614 -- big year. March 1614. Pocahontas, in captivity a year, and upset with her father
for not obtaining her release (would not "make the necessary trades")

Virginia governor takes her to her father's territory, to compel him to agree, and meanwhile ,
decides to stay with the English, see Softschools, and what is the chronology here: .

Why? Go to NPS Virginia Co.
More company woes, gimmicks to recruit despite financial matters
nearing disaster, people in England and the settlement were owed land
and money, indentured servitude initiated ultimately in order to get
labor, investors got land in exchange for financing passage of new
settlers, conflict between those wanting trade and profit as focus, and
those seeking use of colony to relieve population overcongestion in
England -- a "headright" system, that ultimately prevailed over the
sheer trade and profit idea. But nobody took advice to diversify,
staying with limited crops, and when they failed, trouble again.

"Every
Person should go to church, Sundays and Holidays, or lye Neck and Heels
that Night, and be a Slave to the Colony the following Week; for the
second Offence, he should be a Slave for a Month; and for the third, a
Year and a Day." Governor Argall's Decree

1617 --Note change to include religious observance and slavery, with the new charter.

Note breathless (without the figures) statement that the uprising "wiped out a quarter of the English population of Virginia"

1624
-- Fourth charter denied; the Virginia Company had failed as a
stockholding enterprise. Virginia to be Royal Colony administered by
English Governor, King James I to appoint.

John Smith writes a second book, see http://smithtrail.net/captain-john-smith/smiths=journals/
1627-1776
-- Virginia, now governed as a colony, and not just with an economic charter as a proprietary colony, could and did increase its territory
and use of resources, and English influence, and challenge Spain as it did.
NSP Virginia Co.

Other Proprietary Colonies: Delaware, Maryland, Pennsylvania see The Crown granted land to the proprietors to repay the debts they incurred, see site http://www.landofthebrave.info/proprietary-colonies.htm

Powhatans,
prestige and power vastly diminished (tribe held only "tributary"
status by then, not primary) and they began to sign treaties with the
English, dividing English lands from Powhatan lands, Powhatans could not
come on English lands without permission and had to wear a special
striped coat (like later jailbirds? in time, badges sufficed) if they
did, and then could only do so for some official purpose. https://www.nps.gov/jame/learn/historyculture/copy-of-the-powhatan-indian-world.htm

"That
religion, or the duty which we owe to our Creator and the manner of
discharging it, can be directed by reason and conviction, not by force
or violence; and therefore, all men are equally entitled to the free
exercise of religion, according to the dictates of conscience; and that
it is the mutual duty of all to practice Christian forbearance, love,
and charity towards each other."

"Section
I. The opinions of men are not the object of civil government, nor
under its jurisdiction; that to suffer the civil magistrate to intrude
his powers into the field of opinion and to restrain the profession or
propagation of principles on supposition of their ill tendency is a
dangerous fallacy, which at once destroys all religious liberty, because
he being of course judge of that tendency will make his opinions the
rule of judgment, and approve or condemn the sentiments of others only
as they shall square with or differ from his own...

Section
II. We the General Assembly of Virginia do enact that no man shall be
compelled to frequent or support any religious worship, place, or
ministry whatsoever, nor shall be enforced, restrained, molested, or
burthened in his body or goods, nor shall otherwise suffer, on account
of his religious opinions or belief; but that all men shall be free to
profess, and by argument to maintain, their opinions in matters of
religion, and that the same shall in no wise diminish, enlarge, or
affect their civil capacities."

Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom
Jan. 16, 1786

NINETEENTH CENTURY -- POST-POCAHONTAS ERA

19th
Century: impoverished tribes, pressured by English, began to sell
their reservations, English and other whites sought termination of their
legal status on reservations nps.

"No
man shall be compelled to frequent or support any religious worship,
place or ministry whatsoever, nor shall be enforced, restrained,
molested or burthened, in his body or goods, nor shall otherwise suffer
on account of his religious opinions or belief: but that all men shall
be free to profess, and by argument to maintain, their opinions in
matters of religion, and that the same shall in no wise diminish,
enlarge or affect their civil capacities.

And the
legislature shall not prescribe any religious test whatsoever; nor
confer any peculiar privileges or advantages on any one sect or
denomination; nor pass any law requiring or authorizing any religious
society, or the people of any district within this commonwealth to levy
on themselves or others any tax for the erection or repair of any house
for public worship or for the support of any church or ministry, but it
shall be left free to every person to select his religious instructor,
and make for his support such private contract as he shall please."

3. Relationship of Pocahontas and John Rolfe. According
to English accounts, the two fell in love and wanted to get married.
Powhatan gave his approval and, after she was converted and renamed
Rebecca, peace was solidified by the marriage of Pocahontas and John
Rolfe in April 1614. Within a year the couple had a son, Thomas. In
1616, the Virginia Company paid to send the Rolfe family to England to
gain more English interest in Jamestown.